


If You Close Your Eyes

by Iki_teru



Series: In the litany of your name [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, at the coliseum, friendship fic, leon and yuffie appreciation week, mentions of motion sickness and throwing up if that bothers you, set during the first game, watch as I skillfully avoid writing fight scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4526748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iki_teru/pseuds/Iki_teru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuffie and Leon head to the Coliseum to follow a lead concerning Cloud. There may also be participation for Fame and Glory, if Yuffie's motion sickness would subside enough to let her continue living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Kingdom Hearts 1, Yuffie and Leon on their way to the Pegasus Cup.  
> written because Yuffie's motion sickness will forever be a point of amusement to me, and because I always wondered about why/how the got to the Coliseum. This is written following Yuffie, versus the previous fic I did following Squall. It's a bit more babbly. Entirely self edited, as always con-crit is appreciated <3

Yuffie focused on her breathing; slow in through the nose, slow and hissed out between the teeth. She had it down to a science, no to an _art_ , and she tried to think happy things, happy still things, happy still things that didn’t involve the pain in her gut and the sweat breaking out across her shoulders and oh damn. She doubled over the trash can, trying to soldier through the experience of throwing up as quietly as possible, but really there’s no elegant way to hurl and she finishes this round with a groan, shifting so the smell of sick wasn’t directly in her face to trigger the next round. 

There would be a next round, of course, because her body hated her and she apparently hated herself for willingly crawling into the gummi-ship. 

“Nobody told you to come,” said Squall, sorry _Leon_ and wasn’t that just the dumbest thing ever? Leon Leonhart, she’d never understand what possessed him to change his name, that went double for why, of all things _Leon_. He had been extra special strange in the last couple of months before the mouse king had shown up with his pronouncement that the Key was coming. Squall had always been a prickly pear but something had shifted in him, making him go from surly and grumpy to down right _mean_ sometimes. Yuffie hated it almost as much as she hated her motion sickness. 

“Screw you, Squall,” she choked out, reveling in the way his shoulders tensed. If he thought she was going to let him get away with a growled pronouncement of _call me Leon_ he had another thing coming. “You really think I’m going to let you go to the Coliseum and get all the fame and glory for yourself?” She managed a half convincing chuckle, even if it did rumble her tummy in an upsetting manner. 

Squall/Leon sighed, again. “I’m going to follow up a lead about Cloud.” 

“Oh, and you weren’t intending to enter at all?” His lack of an answer spoke volumes, and if she had the energy Yuffie might have started flinging things at him. “Right, so as I said: screw you.” She wanted to add on to that, had all sorts of colorful imagery to provide but her stomach cramped again and it was a return to the, alarmingly full, bucket for her face. 

“If you relax and just let it happen it’ll hurt less,” and really the sliver of compassion in his voice rankles worse than anything else so far. 

But she didn’t have the energy, or time, for anything more than “you know what-” and it hit again, dry heaves this time, which was a whole new brand of awful but at least she didn’t have to worry about a splash zone. 

“How exactly do you intend to fight after this?” 

She waved him away, settling more comfortably around her new best friend Mr. Bucket. “I’ll be fine once we land, probably, most likely, gods I hope. Anyway, I’ll totally be fine and maybe sip at a potion and then buy out their concession stand, there is a concession stand isn’t there? I swear I will kill someone if I can’t get food after this.” That was a lie, her stomach felt so tender that she didn’t want put anything into her body that might come back to betray her later, but it sounded sufficiently nonchalant and not at all like she thought she might throw herself out the airlock just for a reprieve. 

They made it, and it was a near thing, poor Mr. Bucket was pretty rank and abused by that point and both members of the party was more than happy to vacate the ship. Hopefully it would have plenty of time to air out. Yuffie took care of the gross contribution she made to the journey, saluting Mr. Bucket as she carefully threw everything away in what she hoped were the appropriate bins. 

She’d have to acquire a new Mr. Bucket for the return trip. Damn. 

“Stay close,” said Squall/Leon as they joined the throng near the entrance. 

“Aw shucks, nice to know you care, Squallie.” She punctured the sentence with a friendly punch to his arm, which he one hundred percent didn’t appreciate nor acknowledge. She sighed, how was she supposed to be a right pain in his ass if he was just going to ignore her? 

The Coliseum was kind of nice, there was a heat to the air they didn’t get in Traverse Town. Granted there was also a _sun_ they didn’t get in Traverse Town. Yuffie took a moment to stretch and enjoy the warmth across her skin and wonder if maybe, maybe they should have brought Aerith. Maybe the change of scenery and the light would do her good, maybe it would revive whatever slipped away in her, relieve some of her nightmares, maybe….

The thought was lost to Yuffie when she spotted a halo of spiky blond hair in the distance. She didn’t really remember much about Cloud, beyond the general shape of him in a chair and his striking blue eyes and the soft tufts of hair the color of sunlight. She grabbed at Leon’s jacket, forgetting for a moment her antagonism of him. “Look, is that him?” 

Leon went stiff under her touch, the minutes drawing out in silence and Yuffie was starting to think she was mistaken when he said; “Wait here.” 

“What? No way, I’m going too.” 

“No,” he snapped, face twisting into something she had no words for beyond _mean_. “Listen to someone for once and just stay here.” 

She did, not so much out of a desire for obedience but because he had raised her proverbial hackles and she could too easily see this fight becoming a Thing. So she stayed and bit her lip until she tasted blood and breathed heavily through her nose and tried to count the anger away. 

They were too far away for her to hear what was being said, and Yuffie was crap at lip reading, but she liked to believe she was a fair shake at body language. Squall- because yes her moment of camaraderie had passed and she refused to call him Leon until he decided to change his name back to Squall and then it would be Leon all day every day- approached the potentially not so mysterious stranger and said a thing. The stranger tensed and twitched and stood very still. Leon said another thing, crossing his arms and canting his hip and the stranger jerked his head, only once. Leon said a couple more things, and gods this was the most boring thing in the world to watch, neither party emoted whatsoever so she couldn’t even amuse herself by providing her own dialogue. She imagined for one wild moment that they were having some intense conversation in Stoic, lots of grunts and mono-syllable replies and that was almost enough to make her crack a smile until the probably-not-a-stranger threw an arm out and Leon jumped back and the probably-definitely-stupid-Cloud took a step back as a swirling vortex of nothing opened behind him. Yuffie tasted the ozone in the air and the fine hairs on her arms stood up in alarm. Then yes-definitely-stupid-Cloud was gone. Again. 

“Well?” she asked when Squall had stalked back over. He ran a hand through his hair, like it did any good the mop just fell back in his eyes, and sighed. 

“Well, we know Cloud’s alive.” 

Yuffie bit her lip against the question she dearly wanted to ask _Tifa, what about Tifa_ because there had been no mention of Tifa here, which meant she was either lost somewhere else or….

No. she wouldn’t think about that. 

“Care to explain why I couldn’t go see Mr. I-can-brood-just-as-well-as-Squall?” 

A look clouded over Squall’s face, something one parts aggravation and two parts sorrow and a dash of regret. “Later,” he said and Yuffie wanted to strangle him because she had heard _that_ often enough to know how to translate it into reality: _I’m going to blow you off until you forget_. 

Part of her wanted to push the issue, part of her fretted that this was some sort of _he’s my friend you never even knew him_ thing which, okay, fair enough she never actually knew Cloud. Her time with him had been a low point for everyone involved, but that didn’t change the fact that if that was the reason, it was a mean and petty thing for Squall to do and damn it, she had the market on mean and petty. 

She was interrupted from making a potentially awful life choice in pushing Squall by a fat little half goat man. She kind of missed the reality in which this would have been alarming. The goat man handed them each a sheaf of paper bearing identical numbers. 

“Pin that somewhere on ya, and be ready when your number is called,” he instructed before moving on. 

Yuffie stared at her number and blinked and looked at Squall’s number and blinked again. “We have the same number,” she pointed it out like it was some dawning revelation. 

“Yes,” said Squall simply. He pinned his number to the sleeve of his jacket and was so utterly nonplussed that Yuffie felt a little more freaked out in that moment than she had when Cloud disappeared via Darkness. 

“Why do we have the same number?” 

“We’re on the same team.” He took her elbow, gently, weirdly gently and okay, what rabbit hole did she fall down. 

“We’re what?” 

Squall was losing his patience with her, a crease formed between his brow that buckled the scar occupying the space. Yuffie felt like she was on mildly more familiar footing. “The same team, Yuffie. You said you wanted to fight, didn’t you?” 

“Yes.” She swallowed and tried not to examine the tingly feeling in her belly. Was she still a little motion sick? 

“Okay then, I thought we could fight together, unless you don’t want to.” 

“What? No, I’m totally cool with it. Just, ya know, surprised. Are you sure you don’t mind?” and she bites her lip because she almost says _I thought you hated me_. 

They take their place in the queue with all the other teams. Leon- okay fine she could give this a try, gods don’t make a big deal out of it- let go of her arm and she felt suddenly a little colder than she had a moment ago. Definitely still a little woozy from the trip. He shrugged like it hadn’t even really been big enough of a deal for him to bother considering it. “You’re not the worst person to have my back.” 

She feels herself smile, feels it stretch into a grin, feels like it’s going to split her face in half because there’s not enough space for the expression bubbling across her features. “Alright,” and her voice isn’t breathy at all, shut up it’s the altitude, “lets go get some fame and glory!” 

 

There is no fame or glory, but that’s okay. There’s nothing like a solid day of kicking ass and doing it for fun versus for life or death. It’s no secret that Yuffie and Leon work well together, they’ve gone on patrol through Traverse Town often enough in tandem to be comfortable next to each other on the battle field. When Sora and company show up and beat them Yuffie makes a big show of threatening to use Donald’s feathers to stuff a pillow but it’s in good fun, mostly, and even Leon seems a little relieved to see the fabled Keybearer isn’t quite as incompetent as he had seemed when they first met him. 

Yuffie bullies the little goat man into selling her a vase she can defile on the return trip. She buckles herself in with a sigh, positioning Mr. Bucket the Second on her lap. “Ready when you are,” and she takes a deep breath and tries to still her fluttering stomach. 

Leon puts a hand on the back of her neck, thumb brushing one shoulder and fingers curled around the other and she suppresses a shudder. “You should Sleep,” he says and she can hear the layer of a spell in the words and before she can protest she’s out cold. 

She comes to when they dock in Traverse Town, groggy and cotton mouthed and she glares accusingly at him, even as he helps her stand. “That was a dick move,” she slurs and grips Mr. Bucket because hey, she may not have needed it _this_ time but no point in wasting a good vase. 

Leon does something with his face that, on any other person may pass for a smirk, but he’s Leon and he doesn’t smirk, that’s too close to a positive expression and would utterly destroy his reign as Brood Master. “You weren’t sick though.” Damn, he has her there. 

“How about a little warning next time?” 

Here she expects him to grumble that there won’t be a next time, and they can get back on track with their arguing and bitching at each other and he catches her utterly off guard by nodding in agreement. 

Her stomach flips and she is glad that is the extent of her motion sickness.


End file.
